ShanghART Beijing is pleased to present Liu Xiaohui’s first solo exhibition “Movements” at the gallery, opening on 4th March, 2018. The exhibition showcases the artist’s latest works in recent three years.
Liu Xiaohui’s new works have gradually switched from a painting style with a hint of narrative to an exploration of the ontology of painting which is more reliable and realistic. The distinct order he has once established are at once challenged.

In his recent works, the movement of dressing or undressing makes the overall compositions destabilized for the first time. Abrupt plants (in other words, the color blocks in green, yellow and black) “grow” in a paradoxical world where truth and falsehood are hard to distinguish. They are alienating object that competed for space on his canvas.

For the artist, the subjects of paintings are not clearly constructed by himself; they are more like the outcome of the artist’s accumulation of experiences. Before touching on the “truthfulness”, he continues to confront the struggles and breakthroughs of the individual from the external world, which also reflect his repetitive query of “truthfulness”. From this perspective, every brushstroke on canvas becomes a self-imposed mystery.

About the Artist

Liu Xiaohui was born in Shandong Province, China, in 1975, and moved to Beijing in 1991. He graduated from Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) High School, and subsequently got his bachelor and master degrees from CAFA. In 2007, he was invited to London for an exchange program. He currently teaches at the Mural Painting Department of CAFA. Practicing primarily as a painter, Liu centers the structure of his practice closely around life, taking it as the source of clue (or path). By employing a painterly language and tireless repeating analysis of color, the artist both affirms and denies perennially the immediate experience. He constantly deliberates and refines non-referring subject matters and ordinary scenes. Finally, Liu aims at accurate expression of truth from an oriental view via permeating effect of quality and quantity.